I am a Muslim and I stand by religion, though, though I do not agree to the way most of the Muslims are living their lives and I would say we have lot of Muslim majority countries but hardly any Islam .. Islam ask one to be active, acquire knowledge and wisdom and change the situation, fight for the basic rights from the rulers rather than accepting as destiny, I think Colonialism which continues to this day in one way form or other has still a role to play in this.
Historically nations rise, peak and then there are down falls, Greek, Romans, Arabs, Ottomon, .. West is similar. How I see it is ebbing pretty fast but the problem is with time we have becoming globalized and interconnected and down fall of west is going to cause destruction for itself and around the world
You say, “secular way of life is better” or “Best of all, secular moral systems can be updated.” I would disagree. For Me Morality is not subjective, Truth is truth, majority cannot decide what is truth. Hitler was democratically elected, and no amount of majority can determine that what he did was correct.
One needs to see past the Individualism to unite people, else everyone will have its own subjective truth and will not unite on any point, and global elites (whatever their agenda is) will roam free.
I would agree that materially. West has made lot of progress and new invention were possible, but those were on the shoulder of Muslims before them who laid the ground work and even in renaissance Muslim has a large role to play ( https://thefridaytimes.com/09-Jul-2021/influence-of-the-islamic-golden-age-on-the-european-renaissance) but this gratitude is missing in west, they do value Greece and Rome but than there is a vacuum and suddenly Western Civilization pop up, they would deny transfer of knowledge and even result of Colonization which suddenly bring surplus in their land ( because of all the looting)
Couple of points trying to bring home, Material progress can keep up an empire progressing for so long , but if they keep degrading in every social aspect eventually they will break, we see breaking point now in term of loneliness, breaking of core family values, sex and drug, entertainment and media , most of the people have become cattles like they can only see what is front of them ( no awareness) and just busy eating the grass ( greed induced by Capitalistic mindset) . Now we are close to a climatic catastrophe but how we are going to induce the idea of greater good in people and concept of community, only morality they understand is based on what they define its true …
Back to renaissance and, Religion vs science debate, where religion termed as evil and intellectuals and thinkers come up with a better way of living based on rationality and individualism, but one should argue that in Islam golden age this was not the issue and even societies before them, what happens is Pope used religion as a tool to hold power and misuse the authority ( over simplifying it) , but based on problem of human greed to power (pope) we come to the conclusion that religion is bad and should not be persuaded , but we do not do that today where Capitalism is causing power and influence to move in few hands which are causing rising inequality and famine . wrote few thoughts of mine in this regard. Science vs religion is a farce debate to me, since I have never ever seen anything against acquiring knowledge, Muhammad PBUH famous saying is “Wisdom is the lost thing of the believer (Momin), where he is found to have the most right.”
https://medium.com/the-heart-of-quran/a-conversation-science-and-religion-85ae33474fed
https://medium.com/@mfakhar2000/is-western-society-based-on-anti-scientism-and-anti-christianism-4ffb827f3c65
Couple of breadcrumbs if you wish to follow.
Jews and Muslims have mostly gone along fine, even Muslim rule of Spain was considered as one of a great period for Jews since they were giving govt positions, below a Rabbi is calling out Zionist state and claiming they are using their religion to justify the cause
"We Cry for the Palestinians" | Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2H-F0HVKDY
Jesus never preached Christianity, he just preached Jews teaching and even his disciple, and even said that I am here to preach to Jews only but than after crucifixion Pual kind of invented Christianity and add his ideas of trinity, and others and then later Constantine when accepted Christianity to legitimize it as state religion and introduce lot of pagan concept, what I am trying to convey is that religion is some thing that God provided ( for guiding) but here we can clearly see what is left in Christianity is not what Jesus PBUH preached ( Muslim claim that they are better follower of Jesus preaching)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3PnD1TScw4&t=2183s